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Potatoes, Saote

Sautéed potatoes with butter, parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoes, Saote

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the boiled potatoes into small pieces.

  2. Heat a little butter in a frying pan.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the potatoes gently until the edges begin to brown.

  2. Transfer the potatoes to a dish.

  3. Pour the melted butter over the potatoes.

  4. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that softens inside and browns at the cut edges.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and flavour to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Fry the potatoes gently until the edges begin to brown. Gentle heat lets the centres warm through while the surface slowly browns through the Maillard reaction. High heat would scorch the butter and burn the outside before the inside is hot.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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